Page 18 of The Murder Between Us
I can’t be that at home.
He threw his pen on the table and scrubbed his face with both hands.
Damn midwestern men. Damn them.
* * *
For the firsttime in the five years Cole had been with the FBI, no one from the office was available to take him out to dinner his first night.
No one… except Noah.
Everyone else had something going on. Which made sense. These people had lives, and Cole had been air-dropped into their world almost overnight. They couldn’t drop everything and take care of him, not when they had families and lives and commitments.
He tried not to read into the fact that, out of everyone, only Noah had no plans and, apparently, nothing and no one to go home to.
Of course, if that was the case, why was he checking his phone every thirty seconds, compulsively texting and scrolling through whatever he’d just received? He was doing anything rather than watch Cole pack up his notes and the case file.
“Ready?” Cole asked. Noah nodded but said nothing. He marched down the hall, his laptop bag bouncing off his ass, shoulders taut and tense.
Cole couldn’t help it. He stared, drinking in Noah’s body where it peeked out from beneath the loose layers, the khakis-and-polo uniform of the federal agent. He’d looked far hotter in his slim-fit dress shirt and those sinful skinny jeans, but nothing Noah could wear would make him look ugly. He wasn’t a neon light anymore in his G-man outfit, wasn’t screamingLook at me, look at me! But for Cole, who’d seen what lay beneath, it was easy to remember the slim hips, the broad chest, the scattering of chest hair. The muscular legs, especially when Noah had wrapped his thighs around Cole’s waist or slid one calf between Cole’s.
Noah led him to an FBI-issued black SUV in the parking lot. They piled in, and Noah clasped the steering wheel with both hands in a white-knuckled death grip. “Where do you want to go?” he asked. His voice was strained, almost strangled. He wouldn’t look at Cole.
Did Cole really want to spend the next two hours with someone who obviously couldn’t stand him? Who wanted nothing to do with him? It would be better to head to the hotel and get to work.
“Can you just drop me off at my hotel?”
Noah’s jaw clenched. His fingers squeezed the leather steering wheel once more. After a long moment, he put the car in gear and backed out.
The hotel was less than a mile away. As they crossed University, Noah pulled into the McDonald’s. “Let me at least run you through a drive-through?” he mumbled.
“Sure. Thanks.”
He told Noah what he wanted and then checked his phone and his email. Five messages from his boss, four follow-ups from cases he was consulting on across the country. A trial update for a case he’d helped out with two years before. Nothing urgent. He slid his phone back into his jacket as Noah passed him the bag with his burger and fries.
“Nothing for you?”
Noah shook his head as he pulled to the stop sign and signaled to turn left onto Fiftieth. Cars whipped by them. “I can’t eat. If I eat, I’ll puke.”
Cole stared. It took a lot, honestly, to leave him speechless these days. But, damn, that did it. How quickly they had gone from Noah’s tender first kiss and their all-night lovemaking to Cole’s presence making Noah want to puke.
That formless anger surged back, white-hot and vicious. Cole dropped the McDonald’s bag on the console and grabbed his laptop bag. Cars were still passing in front of them. He could see his hotel from here. They were a block away. “I’ll walk the rest of the way,” he growled, shoving open the SUV door and sliding out.
“Hey!” Noah shouted. “Cole!”
Cole left the door open and started walking. He heard Noah curse. Heard him shift the car into park. He imagined Noah reaching across the car to drag the passenger door shut. He was already halfway to the hotel.
Fuck Noah. Fuck him and his closet. Fuck him and his secrets. It was 2021. There was no reason to be afraid of coming out.
Unless he was hiding something—something like a wife, or a family, or some other reason why he was going to puke at the sight of Cole and the memory of what they’d done, what they’d been to each other. For one night at least.
Behind him, an engine roared, and he heard tires squeal as Noah raced down the block after him. “Cole, wait!”
Cole shook his head. He didn’t look as Noah pulled alongside him and slowed, creeping along at a walking pace. Cars stacked up behind Noah. He cursed again as they honked.
Cole turned into the hotel’s driveway, speeding up as he headed for the lobby doors. Noah sped up, too, roaring past Cole and then throwing his SUV in park. He waited, window down, and for a moment Cole considered going the long way around the back of the hotel and coming in from poolside. There was always a backdoor.
“I didn’t mean…” Noah hung his head as Cole neared the SUV. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
